Frenetic ramblings from the start of the "War on Terror" logging my attempts to film outside Finsbury park mosque over 3 years and sitting through all the subsequent court cases. These days I write about whatever and generally stay out of trouble. Do visit Youtube.com/malungtvnews

The Sun story named Sugar, singer Amy Winehouse, producer Mark Ronson and Labour peer Lord Levy as among those allegedly being targeted by Islamic extremists.

It quoted a contributor on the forum called "Abuislam" asking: "Have we got a list of top Jews we can target? Can someone post names and addresses?"

However, in another posting on Ummah.com, it was alleged that Abuislam was in fact Jenvey himself and claimed this had been confirmed from his IP and email addresses. The Bloggerheads website also claimed Jenvey had posted the comment himself.

I had a bit of contact with Glen Jenvey during the Hamza stuff. Everything I was writing was basically the opposite of what he was writing but he was aware of my stuff and didn't seem offended by it. We had quite friendly contact over a few emails in which he said he was a Christian and that he was working for peace.

A coupla people at the Beeb I spoke to thought he was a bit strange, and I would guess he is dyslexic from his spelling, that is not a fault. I never met him. Its not for me to judge. I follow this story with interest.

Well that was a mad journey. Loads of rows, a force of energy, the will of a group of misfits to summon the spirits to produce King Lear. Only a handful of us are what I would call thespians, but everyone struggles to make Shakepeare accessible to themselves and pass that accessibility on to people who wouldn't usually see Shakespeare. Greasepaint, mud, chains, a special surprise I will photograph and report after the show. Costumes have been begged borrowed and stolen, we're making buckets of blood, our pigs eye strategy came up against the venues Vegan policy but otherwise its full steam ahead.

January 23, 2009

By ordering shut the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, closing any remaining CIA secret prisons overseas and banning harsh interrogation practices, Obama said he was signaling that the U.S. would confront global violence without sacrificing "our values and our ideals."

"First, I can say without exception or equivocation that the United States will not torture," he said. "Second, we will close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and determine how to deal with those who have been held there."

"It's a great first step but it is only a first step," said Gabor Rona, international director of Human Rights First. "The suspension of military commissions so soon after President Obama took office is an indication of the sense of urgency he feels about reversing the destructive course that the previous administration was taking in fighting terrorism."...

Around 100-120k people marched yesterday. We were briefed that the public order branch expected, and had been told the plan had been arranged for around 15-20k, despite it being all over the media and sites like Indymedia that around 100k were due to turn up. The estimates on numbers are usually somewhere between the Police ones (invariably considerably less than there actually are) and the organisers who seriously ramp up the turn out...We were told (at around 3pm) the official Police estimate was 20-25k, which was complete and utter bollocks...

I have resisted temptation to join in the comments so far, touching on subjects I know a bit about like Reclaim the Streets etc.

Below someone makes an allegation that the anarchists are in some way joining the jihadis. This is complete bollocks. I don't doubt that both are trying to fight Policemen on these demos but the idea that they would link up away from all this is fantasy. In all the time I hung around Finsbury park I was the only protester type with the remotest interest in events there. The F.I.T not very intelligence squad tried really hard to imagine some sort of link with me on only one occasion for a good 2 minutes. (Conversation in more detail here).

I used to show short films of my expriences at "underground media" meet ups and no one even used to ask any fucking questions. Anarchists are generally pro gay rights and against all organised religion. Between anarchists and Jihadis is a seriously gaping GOD PROBLEM not to mention a goal problem. Would anarchists fight for an Islamic state where women wear burkahs? Well hang on a minute... I suppose they are masked themselves. Maybe it is a sexual thing with anarchists? Anyway..

Another thing I can't get into is all this "Ooooo maybe they will all get more radicalized and bomb us...." media. I feel like I am speaking a foreign language when polite people try to gauge this in media. I just don't even get the concept. Maybe they might become more radicalized and bomb us. mmm. Maybe. Terr-ists could point at the telly and say "Lets do terr-ism". Yup. They could do....

Guantanamo voices, two ex inmates and an ex guard on tour around the UK

...so the conversation turned to what we were doing in the UK. When Moazzam explained that he and Chris were ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee and guard, the waiter laughed and then, in the moment of silence, paused and put his hand over his mouth, “Oh God, I thought you were joking.” He stopped for only a beat and then asked Moazzam who had been the prisoner and who had been the guard. Moazzam explained that he was the one imprisoned and the waiter replied, “Oh, I thought it must have been the other way around, the haircut on that boy has to be some form of punishment.”...

January 15, 2009

..."The popular perception by many writers that the Assassins gave their followers hashish in order to make them kill, is untrue, baseless and nothing more than successful propaganda by the Seljuk Dynasty trying to stain the reputation of this cult...

January 13, 2009

I never liked Tariq Ali very much. Watching him on the Stop The War stages he always came across as part of this back-slappin' glitterati/litterati old left elite. Reading his book which I have linked to in the sidebar I found out that he certainly knows his shit about Pakistan and experienced Pakistan from a very interesting point of view at a very interesting time. He is talking at The Frontline club tonight at 7 (GMT),

UPDATE: Well that was really good. This man has a great insight into the Pakistani situation whether you agree with his politics or not. The whole presentation is online here

..."You bring your evidence and I will bring mine and we will see whose evidence is stronger," Sufiyam Barhoumi, an Algerian accused of being an explosives trainer in Afghanistan, told a military panel. His challenge was rejected by a U.S. Air Force colonel, who said "the only thing we can discuss here is the unclassified summary of evidence." Barhoumi remains at Guantanamo...

January 12, 2009

All a bit inevitable really wasn't it. People could blame this on the organizers. The thing is because a spontaneous illegal breakaway set off to the Israeli embassy last week, they had little choice but to have a legal demo there this week, as people would have gone there anyway. I can't see any point if you are angry about Gaza to direct your energy toward a Policeman. I think this energy could be directed more usefully. Rioting and the excitment of group mentality is interesting to watch for a bit but in this case it doesn't achieve very much does it.

We got bored of all the droning speeches at the beginning and disappeared into the Serpentine gallery to warm up. When we rejoined the march it was obviously huge. We stopped for a coffee in Notting hill for half an hour, came out and the march was still going past. This was the scene when we finally made it to the embassy.

Cities across the world become platform for hundreds of thousands of protesters against Gaza fighting Daily Mail (who put the crowd at 100,000)

Talking with a few of them they are shy of pubicity which is fair enough. Squat multi million pound properties and you are going to get this aren't you. I think "Posh squatting" is really good for stunt journalism and mainstream media infiltration as long as people enjoy it. When I used to do this sort of thing, at the start of this blog for instance I enjoyed riding the tail and blazing the trail of papers and TV with some good results but it did drive me quite nutty.

The journalists who made stuff about us wanted a positive story and were prepared to overlook negative things which could have been written about us- like the fact that we had moved most of the posse round the corner into an empty building on the site of one of the poshest schools in North London where TS Elliot and Sir Clive Sinclair had spent their youth. The school governers shit themselves, thinking we must have done it on purpose for some sort of "protest". They didn't think anyone could have been stupid enough to do such a thing by accident. We were. I have film of Brazilians happily tattooing each other in the basement, I will have to dig it out.

When the BBC and ITV London pieces about us went out on TV I was expecting a Sun headline the next day "Nice neighbour squatters squat school building in term time" but thankfully the School governers didn't want this sort of publicity. In court they were lined up looking very worried. We made no defence and apoligized profusely saying what a beautiful building it was. They waived the court costs we were liable for and I thanked them. Their posession order was immediate, we just about had enough time to break somewhere else and get everyone out.

When the caretaker turned up to secure the building he was laughing. I was mortified that some people had fucking scratched their names on oak doors. he didn't give a shit saying the building was having a 6 million pound refit anyway.

Over the years I have found the Evening Standard (a rightwing paper) to be invariably positive about squatters who use squats in a positive manner and negative about squatters who trash places. Because they are London based, where space is a premium I think they appreciate basic enterprise and the criminality of buildings left empty.

What is totally missing from The Temporary School of Thought is all the huge amount of internal madness, agro and drug consumtion connected to my experiences of this sort of thing. A lot of this is because these are all young students who wouldn't be homeless without the place like the bogus assylum seekers and crazies we lived with would have been. Missing also are all the moany, arsey old "activists" going on about "the Movement" and falling out with each other. I have never met such a positve bunch of squatters on a mission.Here's a fairly positive article in The Evening Standard plus loads of links from Hexayurts Twitter page including audio from Vinnay Gupta's excellent talk about infrastructure I was blogging about the other day. Listen to this, it makes total sense! I just noticed I have appeared in the corner of a photo.

Personally I like all journalism about squatting and squatters, even bad stuff is just funny. Simply it is really good to document these things.

January 09, 2009

January 08, 2009

Musa came by the other day. It was great to see him, but he is in a bad way. His son was beaten up really badly. He was lucky he wasn't killed. There are three witnesses, the Police haven't even interviewed them. I am not even sure how much I can say about this on this blog. He thinks the Police aren't interested because they believe he is a terrorist.

I went to The Temporary School of Thought today to find a seriously energizing group of very young people. I am a bit tired now but I will hopefully visit again and blog some more about them. Vinnay Gupta enthusiastically brought into cinematic focus a lot of what I have been grasping at shadows about very recently as a way forward politically. Serendipity? I do hope so. Later he taught a form of meditation which is new to me. I was looking for one of those too, as although I feel I have benefited immensely from Vipassna in the last few years, I struggle a bit with some of the philosophies behind it and needed something to compare it to, if nothing else.

Over the last few days one of my Republican buddies, Rightwingsparkle made contact with a woman in Palestine. I am not sure what they achieved, but I am glad they had a conversation anyway.

She has posted a link to a blog by an Israeli and a Palestinian who live fairly close on different sides of the border. Do take a look at Life must go on in Gaza and Sderot

January 05, 2009

...His PalTalk account has been blocked and Lebanese authorities have issued a warrant for his arrest after he was linked to weapons training for a group called Al-Qaeda Lebanon. He has had to leave his home in North Lebanon, and although he denies that he is 'on the run', he acknowledges he is 'on the move'.

But there is a good chance it will go no further than that. As he told me, the Lebanese authorities know where he is, and could arrest him if they wanted to. The fact that they have chosen not to speaks volumes...

...He is a free, innocent, if controversial man. That's why Omar Bakri is a problem figure. Those within the British authorities who see him as a dangerous influence who should be controlled, can do nothing but bite their tongues and sit on their hands.

As he told Sky News in December, "They deport me, or they prevent me from returning back to Britain, or prevent people entering the UK, they think that (is) going to make them stop communicating? If they stop the internet we will communicate by phone. Will they stop every call in the world?"...

Remember Ewa Jasiewicz? This Ewa Jasiewicz Mike wrote about in Socialistwanker years ago. She was apparently on one of the last boats into Gaza and is now reporting for The Guardian and The BBC. Rather her than me.

January 04, 2009

OK. Why not as it is the fourth already I can safely pop up and say Happy New Year. We ended up doing a really good gig musically which enough people seemed to get into. When we finnished it descended into mayhem pandemeonium and scraps. There isn't usually any formal "security" at the squatted pub we play at so I was amused to see both people who were kicking off disappear backwards one after the other, collar held by some looming shape. They both came back in a little bit later much more peaceable. Fucking good bouncer. I will make enquiries.

As it is New Year and I am trying to at least start a little bit positive I am not even going to bother commenting about Palestine. I am a bit annoyed with my Repub buddies straight away wading in but I shouldn't be surprised eh. I'm not there. I have never been there. I don't know. Sunny is keeping me fairly sane with his carefully principled weave through all of this. Do take a look.

Yeah. I'm trying to start positive..

Then I read this on The Home Office website:

Cannabis is scheduled to be reclassified to a Class B drug in 2009.

The Home Secretary has recommended that cannabis should be reclassified to a Class B drug.

and the reasoning?

Why reclassify now?

The move to reclassify cannabis reflects the fact that skunk, a much stronger version of the drug, now dominates the UK's cannabis market. Skunk has swept other, less potent, forms of cannabis off the market, and now accounts for 81% of cannabis available on our streets, compared to just 30% in 2002

so by YOUR OWN FUCKING REASONING shouldn't you just make skunk class B then? Happy New Year to you too you fucking pieces of SHIT.